We often receive questions regarding whether small businesses should utilise AI chatbots for customer enquiries or staffing solutions. Often an either AI chatbots or staff solution question is posed, but most small businesses end up in the middle, even if this is unintentional.
AI chatbots have their strengths. Giving an AI chatbot simple information such as your business hours or your business’s delivery post code, or even how much a specific product costs, can remove a significant burden of repetitive enquiries from your staff. An AI chatbot can literally provide this information all day, every day, and be infinitely more patient than staff when answering a repetitive question for the hundredth time.
AI chatbots, unfortunately, do not understand the finer points of a situation. AI chatbots struggle with significantly more complex tasks such as interpreting a query outside the standard business enquiries, interpreting customer frustration, let alone taking appropriate action.
Your average customer will not only interpret the frustration of being routed to an AI chatbot, but will also interpret that the AI chatbot is failing to achieve customer service.
Obviously, humans can handle the things bots cannot. Things like interpreting emotions and deciding how to best adapt the conversation are human capabilities that bots will not have. However, humans also have their limitations. They are not available at all hours of the day. Interacting with a human is a waste of time if the only thing they are going to do is respond to the same simple question repeatedly.
Which option is better is largely based upon the nature of the questions you receive. If the questions are simple and repetitive, it is likely that a chatbot will be a better option. This is because once the chatbot has answered the question, your staff will be able to focus on the questions that are more difficult to answer. However, if the majority of the questions you receive are complex and high value, like a custom quote or a service that requires significant variation based on the case, a chatbot will answer the question, but ultimately will be a disservice to the customer.
If you decide on a chatbot, the one thing we see time and again is companies attempting to make their chatbot appear more capable than it is. Don’t try to trick users by making your chatbot appear to be more human than it is. Users figure this out and it usually leads to a loss of trust for your company. It is better to be transparent and say your chatbot is an assistant. It is also important to make the transition to a real person quick. The most frustrating thing for a user is to be stuck in a repetitive message.
There are some other things to think about. You need to set proper expectations. If you say your chat widget is capable of “instant replies”, and at other times it sits unmonitored, you are going to lose the user’s trust. It is better to say your chat widget is unmonitored outside of business hours. It is better to set expectations properly than to promise things you cannot deliver.
After observing multiple small businesses, we tend to lean toward favoring a hybrid approach. Let’s assume you have a bot that can answer simple questions and capture basic information. That bot should be available to respond to questions outside of business hours. However, quick access to a real person should be the goal. The businesses that get this wrong tend to be the ones using bots to avoid difficult situations. Those businesses avoid staffing those conversations, and those customers are aware, and it shows in how much trust customers have when considering your business and buying later on.